Personal computing technology and cellular telephone devices have changed radically over the past 10 years. Personal computing (PC) devices have become increasingly popular, quickly evolving into ever smaller form factors such as netbooks and tablets, with increased computing power. Simultaneously, the cellular telephone market has evolved into a personal information management device that includes email, texting and camera capabilities, rather than simply a voice communications device. As a result, both larger and smaller PC devices have become essential to consumers to conduct their day to day lives.
As these devices continue to proliferate the market and consumers become increasingly savvy, it has become evident that traditional PC-centric input schemes and PC-centric user interfaces are increasingly posing obstacles to a richer end user experience. As used herein, the phrase “PC-centric” refers to traditional PC-based platforms having a mouse, pen, touch screen or other such existing interfaces. Users are just as likely to want to utilize an application on a handheld smart phone or MID as a traditional PC-centric devices, thus posing a number of different challenges for application developers. Applications designed for larger footprint PCs, for example, have difficulty running (if they are able to run at all) on smaller form factors with lower computing power. For example, largely due to the form factor, mobile device applications typically have reduced and/or different functionality than similar applications available to PC-centric devices (e.g., devices with large screens, a mouse or other such device that controls a cursor on the screen, etc.). Handheld device application features are frequently “dumbed down” or condensed for handheld device, typically with reduced functionality.
The most common example of such an altered application is the typical web browser that runs on a hand held device. These browsers typically provide limited browsing ability because they are based on a PC-centric paradigm of utilizing an input device such as a keyboard, mouse, trackball and/or trackpad/touchpad, where a “cursor” (text or pointer) is moved around the screen. Alternatively, the current paradigm may accept touch screen input where a user may utilize a finger or a pen to provide input to the device. Touch screen technology was also designed within a PC-centric environment and as such, typically relies on a variety of PC-centric functionality. Without these types of PC-centric input devices, however, developers for browsers that run on handheld devices may be forced to adapt their application for hand held devices (typically by providing reduced functionality).
In addition to the functionality, the fundamental user interface of a PC-centric application may also have to be modified or redesigned in order to take into account the limited screen real estate and other limitations on handheld device. Referring back to the browser example, although the user interface of a browser on a handheld device may resemble the original browser on which it is based on a PC-centric platform, the handheld interface is typically simplified to compensate for the limitations of the handheld device. This factor, together with the significantly limited input schemes available on handheld devices, are quickly rendering existing PC-centric user interaction paradigms obsolete.